If Carlsberg made jobs?

Sure as hell beats dealing with schoolkids...

Is it possible to deploy a miniscule ad spend and deliver significant global reach? In short, yes.

It can be frustratingly hard; and does rely on you pulling all the right levers, creatively dramatising the right insight, and understanding how to navigate and manipulate consumer / journalistic behaviours across the digital landscape in order to help others spread the word on your behalf. To name but a few of the challenges.

Factor in a little luck (and a slow news day ALWAYS helps), but anything is indeed possible. So, how can one achieve such tall order? Just ask the marketing boys in Queensland…

With all the hype surrounding Baz Lurhman’s ‘epic’ film Australia (besides Jackman’s pecs and Kidman’s non-moving botoxed face and the cute kid, ain’t much else on offer, sorry Bazza get the back to a ballroom…), the Australian tourist board and their magnificently huge budgets supported the film launch, making significant noise across celeb interviews, cinema, TV, press, posters, PR, you name the channel, they no doubt used it.

But where did the real innovation come from? Where did we see the real Aussie magic*? Unbelievably, from Queensland tourist board, no doubt conscious they wanted their slice of all those extra in-bound visitors.

When faced with the question ‘where do I put my modest budget of circa AUS $250k, thank god the answer wasn’t a couple of banners and a lacklustre microsite. What the canny Aussies did will no doubt become a great digital case study (which will be working its way round the globe very shortly).

A simple recruitment ad was at the heart of their strategy to maximise their reach far beyond what the budget would traditionally deliver. A simple ad, advertising a meagre caretaker’s position?

But this wasn’t any caretaker job (cue M+S sexy voiceover). This was the ‘caretaker’ of the Hamilton Island, with such onerous duties as looking after the local wildlife, sending the odd email / video blog, and generally sunning oneself for the duration of the post; 6 months. Best job in the world a la Carlsberg? Probably…

The salary (and no doubt the lion’s share of the overall marketing budget), came in at a whopping $75,000!

Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Those simple recruitment ads placed just once in a few key markets, supported by a little PR, a small yet functional site (that interested parties can populate / review), and of course, the rather attractive salary. What next!?

Sit back, and watch it fly my pretties, watch it fly…

All of a sudden, that modest caretakers role is suddenly dominating the blogosphere, journalists worldwide clamour to break the story, radio dj’s are giving countless hours of free airplay, the watercoolers globally are a-buzzing, tweets-a-tweeting, emails flying, the ‘and finally’ news bulletins the world over have also picked up the story and are very kingly advertising your ‘situation vacant’.

All of which results in the number of applicants growing by the hour. Since launching on January 12th, there’ve been over 10,666 applications, over 2.3 million visitors, 41,000 referrals via facebook, applicants from Blighty, to the Vatican, even Kazakhstan, and massive worldwide media coverage.

And the closing date beckons…

In short, this is pure genius. And proof you don’t need millions of advertising dollars to stand out. Just an attractive product, a killer insight, and an understanding of how best to execute UGC / digital landscape / the media in order maximise your reach. A veritable master class in the potential of a small budget, the majority of which never went near paid media.

One assumes a fat pay rise for all involved. If not, maybe some consultancy work for other brands that ‘want a caretaker’…

Iain Morrison is a senior marketer in the British Tourism Industry. And hoping to retrain as a caretaker very shortly…

*and yes, no doubt we’ll be seeing some more Aussie magic on the cricket field in the very near future.